How to build a billion pound app

It’s the startup dream: to create an app that turns you into a billionaire, and Freeformers is working with companies all over the world to help develop these stellar tech ideas.

“We believe it’s through tried and tested means, a theory we take from the lean startup,” explained Kai Barnes, manager of the 141 team at Freeformers. “You just need to ‘build, measure, learn’.”

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This method, much like the way Niantic is consistently updating Pokemon Go in terms of their players’ wishes is the best way to create a successful app, Barnes explained. Presenting at WIRED Next Generation, Freeformers showed kids as young as 12 how they too can make a fortune in technology by combining the lean startup method of working fast and improving as you go.

“Any of you guys can become a billionaire - you just need that one good idea,” Barnes explained. Using a system of understanding APIs, wire-framing your idea, prototyping your idea and then testing that prototype, tech companies can ensure their idea will produce useful results. Speaking of companies such as Spotify, Uber and Airbnb, which have all managed to create business models without actually owning the products involved (the music, the cars or the homes), the company outlined the mentality for finding the right idea: “These companies are creating a life hack. That’s how you make something.”

When asked for her top three tips, Barnes explained the best method for developing a successful app:

1. Feel fast and iterate quickly2. Build, measure and learn - use the lean startup methodology3. If people love the product, the product will put customers first

And as for the future of tech companies? “I would love to see all these archaic corporates open up to diversity and digital talents,” says Barnes. “That’s what going to make the future a better place. It’s the young people who are going to change these things.”